76 Bwarf Pear CaJture. [Feb., 



Agricultural meeting in Boston last Spring. He says : ' The Pear 

 upon the Quince should be planted deep enough to cover the place 

 of junction three or four inches below the soil, and then the Pear 

 vrill throw out roots for itself, and the result will be, not only early 

 fruiting, but also strength and longevity !' 



Let this suffice. If it is desirable to get the Pear stock to throw 

 out roots, why the necessity of any junction ! Why graft on the 

 Quince at all ? How does the gentleman know of the great longev- 

 ity? Has he tried it? No, gentlemen, this is a new thing with the 

 intelligent Col. Another jump at conclusions without practical ex- 

 perience — another moon-shine theory — in short, another humbug ! 

 When Col. Wilder shall have tried this new project for some twenty 

 years, then it is, that he can speak with some truth and confidence as 

 to ' early fruiting and longevity.' Besides, will the Pear, under 

 the circumstances which he so flippantly describes, continue to be a 

 dwarf? Does not every Pomologist and nurseryman in this hall 

 know, that the tree must necessarily assume the character of a stand- 

 ard ? It also assumes the character of a layer tree, being nourished 

 by roots of its own variety. And yet, here it is, palpable as the 

 noon day sun, that one of the greatest advocates of the Dwarf Pear 

 in America, is found abandoning his early love under an ingenious 

 disguise — a transformation, which entirely changes the Dwarf into 

 a standard tree. Why does not Col. Wilder state these things in 

 plain terms ? Perhaps he may have written a book on Dwarf Pears. 

 If so, that fixes him ' Dwarf for ever. 



For our part we do not believe that any grafted Pear tree, has ever 

 attained the age ascribed by nurserymen in France and elsewhere. 

 Mr. Downing, in his work on Fruits, page 553, says : " It is a 

 well established fact, that a seedling tree, if allowed to grow on its 

 own roots, is much longer lived, and often more vigorous than the 

 same variety, when grafted upon another stock ; and experience has 

 also proved, that in proportion to the likeness or close relation be- 

 tween the stock and the graft, is the long life of the grafted tree." 



To carry out this universally acknowledged principle, then, what 

 can we expect as to the longevity of the Pear grafted on Quince ; 

 where the two varieties of wood are so entirely dissimilar? Is it not 

 the hight of absurdity to presume that they can be of long life ? or 

 that they can ever be depended on for exhuberant bearing ? There 

 must be an affinity then, between the graft and the stock ; and the 

 closer that affinity is, the better; for like produces like, in the vege- 



